Human Writes: Telling fact from fiction

Because of the nature of social media, most of what is published goes unmediated. Photo: 123rf.com

As a young journalist, I w­­orked under a seasoned news editor, Nizam, who enjoyed jesting, “Don’t let the facts spoil the story.” It was a joke, of course, yet to a rookie reporter, those words had a shock effect. I had much to learn.

Now, more than two decades on, I am horrified to see a world abound with murky stories, “alternative” facts, untruths and simply outright lies.